Tuesday, November 20, 2007

DoD demands injured vets pay back bonuses

By Libby

In their desperation to meet quotas, the military gave out enlistment bonuses up to $30,000 to get kids to sign up. Now, in some perverse twist on the Pottery Barn rule, if the soldiers were so broken by war injuries that they can't complete their full term of service, the DoD is demanding they give the money back. We're talking about thousands of soldiers who have lost arms, legs, eyesight, hearing and brain function.

Jordan Fox is one of them. He lost all vision in his right eye and suffered a back injury three months short of his contract and will be unable to return to active duty. His mother started a care package program for soldiers in Iraq, "Operation Pittsburgh Pride which has sent approximately 4,000 care packages." Bush met with her personally to thank her and sent her a note expressing concern when Jordan was injured. Then Jordan got a letter from DoD asking for $3,000 of his $10,000 signing bonus back.

Words can't begin to describe my outrage at this callous treatment of those who served and sacrificed their future for the neo-con folly. But this is just one injustice among many betrayals our injured Iraq vets are suffering. Bush's budget proposal wants to cut the federal deficit on the missing limbs of our war wounded. His proposed budget would decrease veterans healthcare spending in 2008 -- and continue the cutting in successive years, just as the returning troops are going to need the most care.

There is a time when incompetence becomes sociopathic, and I think we've reached it in this administration. They have used the troops as props and pawns in their power ploys and they don't even have the human decency to look after those who survived their war games while they take great care to pad the pockets of their corporate cronies? These people should be rotting in jail, not running the country.

5 Comments:

I share your outrage.I live it everyday.My daughter is on her third deployment.She has missed every birth, death, and other family milestone for the past five years. For the past five years, she has been the missing person at every holiday table.She can't get out; there is a stop loss order that keeps all personnel in the military like slaves.Under threats of prosecution.When she returned from her second deployment, she shared stories.An IED hit her convoy during her second deploymentShe witnessed colleagues being blown up before her eyes.Limbs flying in the air, she said.When she returned home, she could not sleep for months.The Army refuses to recognize PTSD.Nine months later, they sent her back to Iraq.The government has upped the ante.They now pay $20,000 to recruit cannon fodder.My daughter says this immoral.How can a young kid, with visions of a new car, or tuition money, possibly comprehend the horror of the Iraq war in exchange for beans, she says.Morter fragments bear Chinese insciptions.Yes, the same China that sells cheap merchandise to dumb Americans at Walmart also sells arms to insurgents who attack American kids.The same Chinse government that finances our soverign debt.But CNN and Faux News thinks Britney Spears is more important news than Chinese inscriptions on morter fragments aimed at our kids.I listen to the causalty reports on the nightly news.I quake everytime the telephone rings.I do not shop at Walmart anymore.I have started hating all authority.Even local law enforcement in the town where I live.They ticketed my daughter the last time she returned from Iraq and was on her way to visit me.I screamed at the Chief of Police on the telephone for ticketing her.Almost got myself arrested.You have no idea how much anger I carry around these days.And there is not a goddam thing I can do about it.Yes, I live these outrages everyday.